Hundreds of trees along the American River – and the habitat around them – could be removed, as part of a flood- and erosion-control project. Neighbors in Sacramento County’s La Riviera neighborhood are urgently fighting the plans, which are up for an important vote Friday. … [T]he park could be filled with construction materials and equipment as soon as next summer. Its soccer fields are set to be the staging area for part of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) project aimed at protecting the levy from erosion in the event of a disastrous flood. … The Corps is seeking environmental approvals to move forward with a part of the project called Contract 3B, which would affect trees and riverbanks along a three-mile stretch of the American River, from Howe Avenue to just east of Larchmont Park. It calls for the removal of between 675 and 715 trees. … Neighbors say they want to see more targeted, surgical approaches to erosion, rather than the transformation of entire stretches of the riverbank, like the Corps work done along the river in 2023 near Sac State.